Groups to Launch Multi-State Water Quality Trading in Ohio River Basin

Electric Power Research Institute and project collaborators American Farmland Trust, Hunton & Williams LLP, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Kieser and Associates, LLC., recently received a $1 million Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant marks the second phase of a project to develop the first interstate water quality trading market for agriculture in the nation.

Water quality trading is a market-based approach that enables facilities facing high pollution control cost to buy reduction credits from entities with lower costs, such as farms. As part of the program, farms will be able to sell nitrogen and phosphorus, potentially generating greenhouse gas reduction credits from on-farm conservation practices that result in new income for their operations.

This project will address point-source emissions and non-point-source emissions in the Ohio River Basin. Collaborators anticipate pilot trades with at least three power plants or other participants and up to 50 farms implementing agricultural conservation best management practices on up to 20,000 acres across Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Illinois or Tennessee. The overall goal of the collaborators is to improve water quality in the Ohio River Basin and reduce hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ohio AgriBusiness Association President and CEO Chris Henney believes this project marks a step forward in water quality trading and water quality management. “Our ag retailers in the fertilizer industry recognize the need to support opportunities for farmers to actively participate in water quality trading,” Henney said. “In the long run it will strengthen our industries’ customers—farmers—which will in turn strengthen the overall agribusiness industry as well as the environment. It is a win-win situation.”

For additional information on this multi-state water quality trading project, see the full press releases from America’s Farmland Trust and the Electric Power Research Institute.